APPT9 Manila: Finkenrath leads final 23

It is common knowledge that Day 2 of any Main Event is usually the longest with survivors of day one flights merging and playing down to a final table. With 175 players entering the Grand Ballroom of the City of Dreams today, there was no doubt it would be a long day ahead, and playing down to the final table may be a bit of a stretch.

So almost immediately, APPT President Danny McDonagh informed players that an adjustment would be made and eleven levels would be played. This came as a bit of good news to some players who found themselves enjoying last night's Players Party that extended into the wee hours of the morning.

Once cards were in the air, it was time for scalping and within minutes one of the first casualties was Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin who was on the losing end of a set over set situation. As we got closer to the bubble, the chip leader coming into Day 2, Dong Il Kim, was eliminated, along with another Team PokerStars Pro, Bryan Huang, and Englishman Sam Razavi, whose knack for going deep in large fields was not to be granted today.

When the bubble burst on the final 72 players, that left only one Team PokerStars Pro in the field, Vivian Im, who was in fighting form with a hefty arsenal already amassed.

After that, it was all systems go with many short stacks getting it in the middle knowing that no matter what happened, a profit was already coming their way. As expected, the field shrank pretty fast, with players such as Jesse McKenzie (72nd), Azusa Maeda (68th), former Red Dragon champion Mark Benasa (56th), Andrew Gaw (54th), defending champion Thanh Ha Duong (35th) and former APPT Seoul winner Chane Kampanatsanyakorn (34th).

With the players tiring late in the evening, Team PokerStars would lose their last representative with Vivian Im getting awfully unlucky when her pocket kings were cracked by the rivered straight of Mital Chandihok. It was a significant pot as Im had to settle for 28th place.

At 2:00am local time, play was called to a halt with 23 players surviving the day. It's going to be an exciting day tomorrow with the likes of Mike Kim, Winfred Yu, former MPC champion Terry Fan and former APPT winner Aaron Lim all surviving to reach the final day. However the chip lead would end up with Germany's Iona Finkenrath as the only player above the one million chip mark.